Tag: muntii cernei

Hiking in the Cerna Mountains: Part Two

25th October 2024

After I hiked up to the Cerna ridge from Cerna-Sat and survived my first three flocks of well-protected sheep, it was time to encounter… the next flock of sheep! It’s Day Three of my traverse of the Cerna ridge, and I wake up to very strong winds, and an equally strong awareness that I need to get going fast so as to beat ‘the flock with the bad shepherds and evil dogs’ to it. I’ve been warned against those by the previous shepherds, and I’m a little bit concerned. By ‘beating them to it’ I mean passing them before they get to the ridge; they will have to climb up from the valley several hundreds of metres below me, so I have an advantage. If I get going on time, that is.

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Camping next to the Ses River in the Cerna Mountains

Hiking the Cerna Ridge

18th October 2024

I have a lot of stories to tell since my last update in January, but I’m going to start with the last one: my traverse of the Cerna Mountains in September. I’m going to share it with you in two instalments since I finally figured out that writing it all in one go is a lot of work and becomes way too daunting a task – which means I keep postponing it and hardly get to post anything. So I’m lowering the bar a bit – so that I can write and you can read! Here goes.

“What if I fall?”
“Oh but my darling,
What if you fly?”

I was so scared beforehand: can I still do this? Is this the right thing for me to do now? It was mid September, and I had finally decided to go on a long hike; the first of the season, at the start of autumn. I was reeling from so many things: the drawn-out process of purchasing our Romanian house and starting the renovations have taken a huge toll on me, and sent me hurtling down a terrifying depression episode. I’ve hardly had time to work, or hike. Still sniffling with a cold, I was only just regaining the courage and energy to embark on an adventure like this. But could I? The only way to find out was to actually try. And I felt I just had to. So I planned a trip, and sat on a bus, terrified and tempted.

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